|
(A)... How, then, does Unity give rise to Multiplicity?
By its omnipresence: there is nowhere where it is not; it
occupies, therefore, all that is; at once, it is manifold- or,
rather, it is all things.
If it were simply and solely everywhere, all would be this one
thing alone: but it is, also, in no place, and this gives, in the
final result, that, while all exists by means of it, in virtue of
its omnipresence, all is distinct from it in virtue of its being
nowhere.
But why is it not merely present everywhere but in addition
nowhere-present?
Because, universality demands a previous unity. It must,
therefore, pervade all things and make all, but not be the
universe which it makes.
(B) The Soul itself must exist as Seeing- with the
Intellectual-Principle as the object of its vision- it is
undetermined before it sees but is naturally apt to see: in other
words, Soul is Matter to [its determinant] the
Intellectual-Principle.
(C) When we exercise intellection upon ourselves, we are,
obviously, observing an intellective nature, for otherwise we
would not be able to have that intellection.
We know, and it is ourselves that we know; therefore we know the
reality of a knowing nature: therefore, before that intellection
in Act, there is another intellection, one at rest, so to speak.
Similarly, that self-intellection is an act upon a reality and
upon a life; therefore, before the Life and Real-Being concerned
in the intellection, there must be another Being and Life. In a
word, intellection is vested in the activities themselves: since,
then, the activities of self-intellection are intellective-forms,
We, the Authentic We, are the Intelligibles and self-intellection
conveys the Image of the Intellectual Sphere.
(D) The Primal is a potentiality of Movement and of Repose- and
so is above and beyond both- its next subsequent has rest and
movement about the Primal. Now this subsequent is the
Intellectual-Principle- so characterized by having intellection
of something not identical with itself whereas the Primal is
without intellection. A knowing principle has duality [that
entailed by being the knower of something) and, moreover, it
knows itself as deficient since its virtue consists in this
knowing and not in its own bare Being.
(E) In the case of everything which has developed from
possibility to actuality the actual is that which remains
self-identical for its entire duration- and this it is which
makes perfection possible even in things of the corporeal order,
as for instance in fire but the actual of this kind cannot be
everlasting since [by the fact of their having once existed only
in potentiality] Matter has its place in them. In anything, on
the contrary, not composite [= never touched by Matter or
potentiality] and possessing actuality, that actual existence is
eternal... There is, however, the case, also in which a thing,
itself existing in actuality, stands as potentiality to some
other form of Being.
(F)... But the First is not to be envisaged as made up from Gods
of a transcendent order: no; the Authentic Existents constitute
the Intellectual-Principle with Which motion and rest begin. The
Primal touches nothing, but is the centre round which those other
Beings lie in repose and in movement. For Movement is aiming, and
the Primal aims at nothing; what could the Summit aspire to?
Has It, even, no Intellection of Itself?
It possesses Itself and therefore is said in general terms to
know itself... But intellection does not mean self-ownership; it
means turning the gaze towards the Primal: now the act of
intellection is itself the Primal Act, and there is therefore no
place for any earlier one. The Being projecting this Act
transcends the Act so that Intellection is secondary to the Being
in which it resides. Intellection is not the transcendently
venerable thing- neither Intellection in general nor even the
Intellection of The Good. Apart from and over any Intellection
stands The Good itself.
The Good therefore needs no consciousness.
What sort of consciousness can be conceived in it?
Consciousness of the Good as existent or non-existent?
If of existent Good, that Good exists before and without any such
consciousness: if the act of consciousness produces that Good,
then The Good was not previously in existence- and, at once, the
very consciousness falls to the ground since it is, no longer
consciousness of The Good.
But would not all this mean that the First does not even live?
The First cannot be said to live since it is the source of Life.
All that has self-consciousness and self-intellection is
derivative; it observes itself in order, by that activity, to
become master of its Being: and if it study itself this can mean
only that ignorance inheres in it and that it is of its own
nature lacking and to be made perfect by Intellection.
All thinking and knowing must, here, be eliminated: the addition
introduces deprivation and deficiency.
|
|
